Vitality Supreme

One will often, hear the remark that one must "eat to keep up his strength." While this advice is fundamentally sound in a large sense under normal conditions and when a true appetite is present, yet there never was a greater delusion when it is applied to forced eating when the appetite is lacking. Eating under such conditions does not keep up one's strength, but on the contrary actually impairs it by burdening the digestive system with food that cannot be properly assimilated. It is not what you eat but what you assimilate that keeps you strong, and digestion depends upon appetite and the enjoyment associated therewith. The question of enjoyment is really a question of appetite, and if you are not hungry and cannot relish the food keenly when meal-time comes it is certainly best to wait until the next meal or until you are hungry. Every wild animal has sense enough to follow its natural inclination in this respect, but thousands of human beings go to the table because it is dinner-time, and force themselves to eat food that they do not desire simply because of the stupid delusion that continual and frequent eating is necessary for strength.